Many people have large digital music collections that they would like to share (e.g., with their children), but do not have the time to screen individual files for inappropriate content.
There are conventions for labeling albums which contain explicit material, through a collaboration between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and music artists, and occasionally digital music outlets will offer both an “original” and a “clean” version of a song or album. The “clean” version typically contains “bleeps” in place of the offensive material or has been re-mixed with the offensive material removed/edited. Thus, a user must either purchase both the “original” and the “clean” versions of the song or purchase just the “clean” version of the song.
A similar situation exists with radio where, in order to meet FCC standards, radio stations are required to play a “clean” radio-edit of a song. Further, in order to appease certain constituents, some of the major “box-stores” will only sell “clean” albums and songs in its store and online. This has generated a backlash among music purists and a loss of business for the stores.
One proposed solution for preventing explicit lyrics from being played includes tagging a song as containing explicit lyrics. A music player can be configured to recognize the explicit lyrics tag and to selectively prevent the song from being played. Unfortunately, this prevents the entire song from being played, even if it includes only a small number of explicit lyrics.
Accordingly, there is a need for a solution that addresses these and other deficiencies of the related art.